News that Telefonica O2 had won the rights to distribute the much-hyped Palm Pre handset has been strongly denied by Palm. Rumours had circulated that the Spanish-based telecom operator had secured the rights for Movistar and O2 to resell the device in Spain, the UK and Latin America.
The story had spread that Telefonica O2 would launch the Palm Pre this summer in the UK, and followed on from rumours Vodafone had been chasing Palm to obtain exclusive rights to the handset. However, Palm has dismissed these reports as being based on a misunderstanding, and has declined to indicate when the Pre might appear in Europe and with which operator.
To put an additional spin on this story, Vodafone's interest was said to have waned after it investigated the handset in more detail, given the risk of marketing an untried device that would need to compete with the iPhone and Blackberry products.
For more on this story:
Softpedia and WhatPC
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